I understand the advantage of a linux box running WFEmu 0.22 (and tethered to your viewsat) saves you the $100 for the commercial dongle.. but without the dongle you need to have access to an iks server, no? I'm sure "private" access can be found for ~$10 dollars a month, but I would think the dongle would pay for itself in the long run.
Finally, this is speculation of course, but perhaps some iks servers are better than others in getting more channels... I haven't seen it mentioned in a while, but what is the typical channel lineup currently up with the SatShop dongle+iks / private iks?